1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image forming apparatuses and processing methods thereof for printing based on print jobs.
2. Description of the Related Art
In print systems of recent years it has been common to store printed job data in a large capacity storage device (HDD) or the like so that it is unnecessary to perform settings again for a print job when reprinting that job. Print jobs are created by using a printer driver to convert data, which has been generated using application software such as document creation software and spreadsheet software or the like, to printer control language data. Then, this print job is transferred via a printer server or directly to a printer, and print output processing is carried out by that printer.
In this case, the print job that has been used once and input from a data supply source is kept stored in a storage device that is installed in the apparatus itself or that is connected externally, or in a server device connected to a network (for example, a print server). Apparatuses have been proposed that are provided with a function in which, in a case where there is an instruction to re-output the print job after this, the print job that has been kept stored is used to generate and output an image in the image forming apparatus.
With this function that carries out re-output, when it is necessary to again output a print job that has already been transmitted once, it is no longer necessary to use the driver the regenerate and resend the print data. For this reason, the efficiency in processing for re-output can be improved, and it is also possible to achieve greater speed in output and reduce the load on the network.
However, since device usage limitations and parameter settings of print jobs are not common among multiple print systems, job settings cannot be reused as they are, and improvements are required.
In order to solve these limitations, substitute printing has been proposed (for example, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-84947) in which a device of a different capability is used by reducing the usage limitations of the device by holding in a print server differences among the image forming apparatuses such as the presence/absence of paper supply, paper discharge devices, and double-sided options.
Furthermore, due to demands from the recent POD market, print systems have been proposed (for example, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-301911) in which custom media other than standard media can be used as a method of specifying papers to be selected for a print job. Here, standard media refers to conventional standard papers such as plain papers and recycled papers used in copiers. Furthermore, custom media refers to custom papers sold by manufacturers, with the characteristics of the papers (grammage and surface properties and the like) registered in a database as parameters (attribute values). Standard media and custom media together are simply referred to as media.
When forming images on papers generally stored in a sheet feeding unit, an image forming apparatus carries out image forming at an optimal speed and fixing unit temperature according to the size and type of those papers. Furthermore, to loosen any adherence between sheets when feeding papers, a function is provided that blows air at an appropriate strength and time for the papers. By using custom media, a user becomes able to carry out appropriate fixing unit temperatures and paper handling for purchased papers, and the user can produce printed matter in a favorable environment.
Unfortunately, on the other hand, paper types that are controllable by image forming apparatuses and media for carrying out optimal image forming have undergone extensive diversification and there are many more types available, such that the number of media used by users has greatly increased. Consequently, a configuration has been proposed in recent print systems in which, instead of preparing all media information in advance on the print system side, the user is able to perform settings using a user interface provided in the image forming apparatus. Further still, configurations have also been proposed in which attribute values of each type of paper are set from a personal computer connected via a network.
The aforementioned standard media are held in advance in the image forming apparatuses, and are common in description among the image forming apparatuses. That is, common standard media settings are used for the print data of stored (archived) print jobs for which standard media were used, and therefore these can be input to a different image forming apparatus and outputted without problem.
However, there is a problem that information sharing cannot be achieved in image forming apparatuses that use a different database than the database in which the print data was archived in regard to the print data of print jobs for which custom media were used, which are managed using a unique ID for each image forming apparatus.